Hatsune Miku has topped the pop charts in Japan, sold out stadium concerts and become a legitimate cultural phenomenon. The interesting thing is that Miku doesn’t exist — at least not in any traditional sense of the word. Miku is a computer-generated avatar that performs songs with the help of a live band. But unlike say, Gorillaz, a cartoon band that merely serves as the public face of an artistic collective, everything about Miku comes from a computer. She is the product of a company called Crypton Future Media, which synthesizes Miku’s voice using Yamaha’s Vocaloid software.

www.switched.com

Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Tags: